Protecting children - Culture needs to change as well as laws

IN recent days we’ve had two examples of the terrible contradictions and hypocrisy we tolerate surrounding child protection.

The huge chasm between what we say, what we promise and preach, what we intend and what we achieve was exposed and shown for what it is yet again. Even though this is not by any means the first time these failings have been laid bare, it is reassuring that they still have the capacity to shock and cause outrage.

The seeds of some sort of redemption, some sort of effective protection system, lie deep within that outrage but it is up to us to turn that anger into something worthy. Something that means our children can go to school without being groomed by a convicted sex offender masquerading as the school caretaker.

Last week we had the Cloyne Report which revealed shaming dishonesty, hypocrisy and loyalties to foreign institutions that meant the course of justice was subverted in this state. It showed that Irish children were left in terrible danger while those who should know better argued about who the angels dancing on the head of the pin were answerable to.

The Cloyne Report dealt with failure facilitated by a culture of deference and bullying and revealed abuses still fresh in the mind of the victims and their families. It was failure on a grand scale and in stark contrast to the Michael Ferry scandal where the evil was personalised and intimate. Ferry’s evil thrived because none of those in a position to ensure that this predator was kept away from children did so. Even in this country, where carelessness is too often confused with being carefree, it is terribly difficult to understand how Ferry, who was convicted of sexually assaulting children in 2002, was allowed to stay in his job as a school caretaker.

Sentencing Ferry, 55, to 18 years in jail for raping and sexually assaulting four boys, Mr Justice Paul Carney said it “must have been known to the local gardaí and presumably the school authorities” that he had a conviction for a similar offence.

In any civilised, self-respecting society, this would have meant that Ferry would not have been allowed to work in such close proximity to children but not here. Pinpointing one of the problems, the Government’s special rapporteur on child protection, Geoffrey Shannon, said it was urgent that a legal obligation on state authorities to share information relating to child protection be introduced.

Echoing the stiffening of attitudes expressed after the publication of the Cloyne Report, Mr Shannon said Children First guidelines must be given statutory force.

This changing attitude was seen again yesterday when Justice Minister Alan Shatter asked the Garda commissioner to examine how Ferry stayed at the school despite his convictions. Mr Shatter said that an early report that showed gardaí had raised concerns about Ferry with the school’s owners made the need for a full explanation even greater. Coming so soon after his direct response to the Cloyne Report by promising to make reporting of suspicions of child abuse mandatory, Mr Shatter’s position should be supported.

However, we need to do much more than change the laws. We need to fundamentally change the culture that has allowed us all to turn a blind eye to these abuses for far too long. Legislation is important but the determination and courage needed to intervene to protect a child is at least as important.